by Tera Shanley
She gave a soft growl of frustration, grabbed the rifle, checked that it was loaded and stuffed two more rounds in the pockets of her dress for good measure. Silent as a breath, she tiptoed to the back door, careful to avoid the planks that creaked.
Outside, the night air on her bare arms gave her a chill, made her feel exposed and unprotected. The men were talking on the other side of the house but she was unable to make out what they said. As she crept slowly around the side, she sent a silent thank you to Lenny for gifting her such quiet shoes.
The setting sun gave off enough light to see the men conversing in front of the house. Garret stood on the porch, leaning against the railing like he didn’t have a care in the world, while Wyatt spoke furiously and waved a gun around with careless abandon. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest. The gun now pointed at Garret. One drunken slip of the finger and he would be lost to her forever. He still hadn’t drawn his weapon.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t put a bullet in you,” Wyatt demanded unsteadily. “You deny my sister. Embarrass her in front of the whole town for a woman you don’t care a thing for. You up and take the cattle that should have been ours. Whitfield sold us his land. His cattle should have come with it. Mighty underhanded, Shaw.”
“Seems to me what’s underhanded is forcing Whitfield off his land in the first place. Can you blame him for wanting to sell his cattle to someone else?”
“That ain’t the point! It’s like you are here to just…just…get to me. You are a splinter. Irritating and always at the back of my mind,” Wyatt said. “You’ve been trouble for me since we were little and there has to be repercussions for pushin’ somebody so long, you hear?”
“Well, I’m sorry ’bout your bad luck. I think you’re just used to getting your way by bullying, and it ain’t working here. I’m just trying to keep my ranch, Wyatt. That’s all. You and your family are going to have to accept we are here and learn to ignore it.”
“You know this place is going to be mine,” Wyatt said, waving his gun in the direction of the land. “With this place, and old Roy’s place, it’ll make a fine piece to start me out. Maybe I’ll get me a little wife. Maybe she’ll be fair and redheaded, with pretty green eyes like the whore you wrangled. Make me some redheaded little babies.”
“Enough!” Garret barked. “Get off my land. Now.”
There was steel in his voice and the crack of tension was so thick, it was almost tangible. Wyatt smiled as if such a show of emotion was exactly what he wanted. He pulled his gun up and directed the barrel at Garret’s chest. As drunk as he sounded, his aim looked true and steady.
She whipped around the house and chambered a round, stalked steadily forward as Wyatt and Garret turned at the sound.
“We was just talkin’ about you,” Wyatt sneered, pulled the gun off Garret’s chest and held it carelessly in the air. “’Cept I had an idea.” He swung his gaze to Garret, likely ruling her out as any real threat. “I hadn’t even got to the good part yet! I was thinking, if your pretty little wife here died, you’d be free to marry my sister and this land would be Jennings land after all. Am I right?”
Wyatt brought his pistol up steadily and with a look of pure hatred in his eyes, aimed it at her. Time slowed to a crawl while she watched in horror as the events went off as if she were dreaming. For surely such horror and violence could only be the result of a night terror.
From Wyatt’s steady hand and the venom in his gaze, he intended to kill her. She pulled the trigger and her aim was true. She hit him in the chest at almost the precise moment Garret shot him in the head, having pulled his gun as soon as the threat was aimed at her.
Wyatt’s brain matter exploded from the side of his face and his body jerked. His weapon fired, his mind having already told his finger to pull the trigger. Final instructions carried out by a hand that didn’t know it was dead yet.
She screamed as searing pain blasted through her shoulder and she was blown off her feet, backward into the dirt.
“Maggie!” Garret yelled as he jumped over the porch railing and ran for her. She felt blood soaking her dress before he was even able to get to her. Such a warm and odd feeling, when life’s vital fluid spilled.
He skidded to a stop beside her and propped her shoulders in his lap. Scanning the entry and exit wounds, he whispered, “No, no, no, no,” as if it would help. “Lenny! Lenny!” he bellowed in a panicked voice.
The girl appeared as if by magic around the side of the house. She chugged breath heavily as if she’d already been running their way.
“Ride for the doc and the sheriff. Ride like hell!”
Lenny disappeared to the barn, running so fast she blurred. Moments later, the Indian girl tore out bareback on her mare, gripping the mane for dear life with the promise of running the beast to death if it came to it.
“She can’t understand you when you only speak English, you know,” Maggie said somberly. She tried her best to smile and ignore the blazing pain that brought stars to the edge of her vision.
Still clutching her shoulders, he looked at her in shock. “That Indian understands the language just fine. I know she talks it too. You two ain’t as clever as you think you are. I have to get this blood stopped.” He put her down gently on his lap and pried his shirt off, ripping every button in the process. “This is going to hurt.”
Before she could respond, he’d pressed the cloth onto both sides of her wound and pushed down with force. She tried not to scream again, she really did. But the pain made her do things she didn’t mean, and the effort proved fruitless.
“Garret,” she said through tears and gasping breaths, “if anything happens to me, promise you’ll write my uncle. Tell him.”
“Don’t talk like that, Maggie,” he pleaded, fear evident to the very whites of his eyes. “I won’t let nothin’ happen to you. Do you hear me?”
“Please,” she said, growing weaker, “just write him...let him know what has happened to me. Tell him I was...happy.” She tried to smile again but the trembling in her voice gave away her fear.
“What’s his name?”
“William Hall. Of Boston.”
Eyebrows furrowed, he whispered, “William Hall is your uncle?”
The corners of her vision blurred and blacked out to a pinpoint.
“Maggie? Maggie! I love you. Do you hear me? I love you. I won’t let nothin’ happen to you.”
She slipped into a blissful unconsciousness to escape the pain and weakness as the last tear filled words from Garret’s mouth guided her into the all-consuming blackness.
* * * *
Maggie’s lifeless form was tucked neatly into Garret’s bed. Doc had come to find him in the front of the house, still pressing as tightly as his shaking arms could on the bullet hole that had pierced his wife. She’d lost too much blood, the doctor said, and had given a grim prognosis. He’d cleaned the wounds and sewn her up, and Garret had tucked her in tightly to keep the cool air from her struggling body.
She hadn’t awakened. Her lips had taken on a blue tint and her skin grown so pale, he could trace the veins running just beneath the surface; her breathing was shallow and labored. He couldn’t find it in himself to leave her for fear she would pass when he wasn’t there with her.
The sheriff was aware of the history. He took Wyatt’s corpse and cleared Garret of any wrongdoing. One look at Maggie, and the lawman had offered him his condolences and been on his way to take the body to Clint Jennings with strict orders for no retaliation.
Even near death, she looked like an angel, and though never having been a praying man before, in desperation, he asked God to let her stay with him.
The fever and shakes began on the second day as infection set in. Doc visited daily to offer what help he could. On the fourth day, the first signs of blood poisoning appeared as little tendrils of red staining her fair skin around the wounds. Maggie withered while her body tried desperately to replenish the blood lost and fight the deadly infection.
The rise and fall of her chest became an obsession. His life felt dependent on the next breath. He found himself agitated whenever anyone came in to pay their respects and interrupted his quiet watchfulness.
Except for Lenny, that was. She cared for Maggie as if she were a sister, and changed her bandages, spent hours dribbling broth down her throat. She bathed her every night, and fixed her hair so she would be presentable for visitors who came to pay their respects. Maggie would likely never know the pains the girl went through for her last days, nor would Lenny expect attention or praise for anything she did, but he was grateful he could share his grief with someone almost as affected as he by this woman.
He didn’t bother to speak anything other than English to the girl, and Lenny didn’t bother pretending she didn’t know what he said. Wanting to be close in case she was needed, which was fine by him, she stayed in the loft and cooked for them. Which made it easier for him to be able to remain at Maggie’s side.
The ranch went on in a somber, numbing haze. Words were rarely spoken between the hands as they went about their day and fulfilled their duties. The animals didn’t go hungry. The livestock were milked, watered, and tended. They were cared for, but there was no joy in the work. No smiles or jokes. The wind carried no laughter.
The first two nights Garret slept beside her, with his hand gently resting on her stomach, where she wouldn’t feel pain. After the fever hit, however, he’d resorted to sleeping in the rocking chair he’d dragged up beside her bed to give her space and the comfort of cool air on her heat-scorched skin. The hole in his heart ached at the thought of losing her. He missed her. Missed so much about her. The countless number of things he had learned to love about her were made so painfully clear in her absence.
A soft knock for entrance had him rubbing the stubble on his face, and he glared at the door with annoyance. “Come in,” he barked. He couldn’t avoid the world forever.
Clint Jennings stepped in, followed closely by his daughter Anna.
Garret leaned back in the chair and cocked his pistol. “Come to finish the job?” he asked.
Clint put his hands in the air and murmured, “Just want to talk, is all.”
The man had seen better days and looked as if he’d aged ten years in the past week. Hair unkempt, and three or more days without a shave, by the stubble on his face. Even his eyes held little life.
“Lenny!” Garret called, and had an almost immediate response from the girl. “Take care of Maggie. I need to take care of something,” he said in her language. Sure, he knew she had English. But for reasons unknown to him she didn’t want others to know, which was all right by him. Garret handed her his other pistol and followed the Jenningses.
“What do you want?” he asked after they’d stepped onto the front porch.
“I want to know what happened to my son,” the older man responded.
“Would you like me to start at the part where he threatened and kidnapped my wife or with the part where he tried to kill her and likely succeeded?” He was in no mood for small talk or niceties.
“I know nothing of any kidnapping.” Clint crossed his arms on his chest.
“All right, a while back your boy and some hired men came to rustle a number of our cattle. The next night, Maggie was out with us and your boy took her in her sleep and rode hell for high water back to your place. I can still hear the fear in her voice as she screamed my name to save her, Clint. It will haunt me until the day I die.”
Anna went pale. “Excuse me,” she said, and sat down on a chair at the far end of the porch. She put a handkerchief to her lips with a trembling hand.
Garret swung a steely gaze back on Clint. “You remember when your boy approached my wife at the dance? She had gloves on her hands to cover the damage done by trying to escape him. That claw mark across his face? It was given by my wife the night he and his men took her.”
Clint’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t tell him to do any of that.”
“But he did, and I didn’t kill him for it. He came looking for trouble on my land. Came here waving a gun and when Maggie tried to protect me from a bullet, he shot her, and he shot to kill. Now you tell me, Mr. Jennings, if someone did those injustices to your late wife, or to your daughter, would you let them live?”
Clint’s expression fell. The man’s eyes brimmed with tears.
A son lost by his father. A damn shame, when it could have been prevented. “I’m real sorry for your loss, Mister. It wasn’t ever my intention that it end up like this.”
Clint nodded. “Sorry for your loss too.” He tromped down the porch steps and turned. “This doesn’t change a thing, Shaw. You still owe the loan in full or your land is mine.”
As Garret retreated to the house, Anna stood.
“May I pay my proper respects to your wife?” she asked.
* * * *
Maggie sat on the front porch of the small cabin on Roy’s homestead. The scene before her came from her memories from childhood. Her toughened hands lay in her lap, and looked out of place against the soft material of her frilly cream-colored dress. This body wasn’t a child’s any longer, so why was she staring at Roy Davis, still living, chopping wood? It must be a dream but with the tug of fatigue at her limbs, this was a happy enough place to dwell in.
“Are you going to just sit there all day or help me with chores? Get moving, Margaret!” someone said in a familiar voice.
When she turned toward it, her mother stared crossly at her from the doorway, ignoring her adult form and questioning look. She bustled back inside. Maggie followed slowly, and the inside of the house was an exact replica of Aunt Margaret’s in Boston. The old biddy would soon appear from the woodwork. Save her mother’s rustlings in the kitchen, the house remained quiet, though.
“Why are you moving so slowly today?” Mother asked, as she stopped her hurried advance past her.
Indeed, her arms and legs felt like burlap sacks full of rocks and sand, but upon inspection, she couldn’t find the cause of the problem. She shrugged helplessly, finding it difficult to speak. Maybe if she sat down.
Nary a piece of furniture stood in the large entryway, and the darkest corner of the room drew her. She took a seat in the safety of the shadows. Her mother ignored her in her haste to finish unseen chores and upon perusal of the room, Maggie Shaw scrawled on the wall leapt out at her.
The door creaked open. Roy came into the entryway and threw his hat and coat on the floor. His face was no longer the aging face of the man she once saw as her father, but the youthful features of fifteen-year-old Garret. His face swelled and contorted, and blood flowed freely from his lip. The boy crumpled to the floor and gasped for air.
He gaped at her and opened his mouth to speak. “My, your wife is sleeping like the dead.”
The voice confused her. Feminine, and it had grated on her ears. Not at all what she had expected from her childhood friend. She was helpless to move. Since her arrival at Roy’s place, she had only grown weaker. Frozen terror overtook her when she tried and failed to stand. Suddenly, the scene melted away, revealing a new one. This one seemed to make even less sense.
By the feel and smell and coolness of the linens on her bare legs, she was in Garret’s bed. So weak and unable to move, her lazy eyelids were the only things she was able to open, and even those, just slightly. A full and feminine mouth formed the words so familiar in her dream. The plump lips smiled at Garret.
“I need to talk to you, Garret. Alone,” the woman said, much too intimately. Who did this woman think she was to speak so to him, her husband?
Garret didn’t answer and instead took the chair near her bed. He must have failed to realize she could see him.
Help! she struggled to scream, I’m here! Can you not see me?
The woman spoke again. “There has been talk around town. I asked Doc myself and he said your wife isn’t going to pull through this. Said it was a matter of time. A waiting game.”
The woman took a step toward Garret
. He’d turned his head, so Maggie couldn’t gauge his reaction.
Anna Jennings. The name came to her as a whisper through the fog.
“I know you care nothing for her,” Anna said. “My brother said so. And a man like you shouldn’t be alone. So...” The woman hesitated a moment more then closed the short distance between them.
Garret launched himself to his feet, pushed the rocking chair out from under himself and retreated the foot and a half of space he had between his back and the wall. “What the—”
“I will accept your proposal after she is dead. We can put all this behind us, Garret. We’ll just forget about her, and I’ll forgive you for your indiscretions.” Her tone had taken on a pleading note, and she placed her hand on his chest, spread her fingers wide to take in the expanse of his musculature. “I can make you happy where she failed.”
The gall of the woman!
Rage. Jealously. She didn’t care what caused it. She wanted to live. Yet when she tried to speak, only the barest whisper of a few molecules of air passed pathetically through her throat. She couldn’t take her burning eyes off the wretched woman’s hand on her trapped husband, and willed the strength to try again. “Get your hands…off my husband,” she whispered.
Garret snapped his head toward her. The look of anger on his face had morphed into shock and something more. Hope?
Anna stepped away from him, startled.
“Get out,” was all Maggie managed before strength left her completely.
“What did she say?” Anna leaned closer to her bed with an offended look on her prim face.
Garret turned to her with a smile. “I do believe my wife told you to get out. Please do so without reserve.”
A cross between a growl and a shriek came from Anna, an atrocious noise. She turned on her heel and left the room. Not before slamming the door, which banked loudly and then bounced open, prompting her to return and slam it again for good measure.
“Spoiled little beast,” he grumbled as he pulled his chair back to the bed.